Dark Secrets (24 page)

“
When you first came
here.” He walked slowly toward me, as if I were a mental patient he
was going to grab at first opportunity. “He caught me during
football practice, watching you on the swing, and—”

“
You were…
watching
me?” An eerie sensation travelled over my neck
and spine, like a hand just touched my shoulder in a room that
was
supposed
to
be empty.

“
Not like you
think.”

I backed away one step
at a time in unison with his. “You’re a creep.”

He stopped walking,
lowering his arms as his green eyes flooded. “I know how this
sounds, Ara-Rose. But it wasn’t like that. I swear. Just, please.
Listen to me.”

I laughed, though it
wasn’t out of amusement. “All this time—you’ve known about me. Even
when we talked in the library?”

He nodded.

“
Well—” I shook my
head, “—I guess it makes sense now why you were so…” Friendly?
Eager? Was that it? What was it with him? Did he enjoy the company
of messed-up young girls? Perhaps it was a complex of his: Knight
Syndrome. I felt like such an idiot. I turned and marched off to
vent my anger away from anyone that could get hurt.

“
Ara?”

“
David, just leave me
alone. Don’t follow me!”

I didn’t look back; I
didn’t want to know if he followed or if he turned and went back
home. As far as I was concerned, hiding a secret from someone,
hiding that you were playing a game with them—that you were probing
to get info out of them—was a friendship-ending offense. If
I
never
saw him
again, that would even be too soon.

The forest showed me
down an alternative path to the one we came in on. Billowing grass
grew up between old tire tracks, and I followed them, hoping they’d
lead me into town. But my trek of rage drove me forward quickly,
submerging me into an eerie surrounding, with the trail fading to
thick shrubs, and at the end of it, only ugly, tangled trees and
thorn-laced vines. I stopped walking. The once background sound of
birds singing and leaves rustling in the wind was now unnervingly
loud.

Real smart, Ara. Go
off the beaten track.

I wandered over and
slumped heavily onto a nearby log, hugging my arms across my body.
I wasn’t sure what to be worried about out here; back home I knew
there could be kangaroos around, but also knew they very rarely
attacked. Here, there could be any manner of man-eating creature,
and that’s without even thinking about the foxes. I really hoped
they could read David’s signs on the border.

I checked my phone; no
service, and it was getting late. The gentle breeze stopped then
and a cunning silence looped around me, stealing the tranquillity
of the woods. Even the midges dancing in beams of light disappeared
with the warmth, leaving a cold kind of concern creeping under my
skin.

I kicked a ladybug off
my shoe and looked back up the slope I just walked down. There was
no denying it. I was stupid to walk off like that. And I shouldn’t
have yelled at David.

I took a really long
breath, lifting my shoulders all the way up, and let it out slowly,
then stood up, dumping my phone in the pocket of my dress. Maybe he
was waiting for me back by the lake—maybe it wasn’t too late to
apologise.

I steeled myself for a
round of grovelling, but after only one step back up the hill,
crashed right into the warm embrace of strong, firm arms.
“Ara!”

“
David?”

“
You silly girl!” He wrapped me up almost restrictively, his
fingertips pressing against my ribs. “Don’t
ever
run off like that again. I
couldn’t find you. I was worried sick.”

“
I—I’m sorry,” I
whispered into his chest.

“
Ara? You. Have.
Nothing
to be sorry for.”

“
But I—”

“
No.” He shook his
head against the top of mine. “I won’t let you say that word
anymore; not for anything.”

I tugged a little to
make him loosen his grip, then looked up at him. “Why didn’t you
just tell me you knew about my mom?”

He smiled, breathing
out through his nose. “Would you have wanted me to know? Would you
still have been my friend?” It was a rhetorical question; we both
knew the answer.

“
So, what am I to you
now? I mean, why would you still be friends with me now that you
know all of this? Am I some damsel project to you or something? Do
you think you can save me?”

David shook his head.
“No, Ara. It was never about that.”

“
Okay, so, what do
you want from me; if my dad hasn’t sent you in as his informant,
then what do you want with me?”

“
Informant?” He
looked down at me. “Is that what you thought?”

“
It makes sense. From
the first moment we met, you acted like we knew each other—like we
were already friends. I just…I wondered why you were so interested,
when, you know, I’m no super model. I don’t really have anything to
offer you.”

“
You have more than
you think, Ara.” He exhaled, rocking his jaw. “Okay, at the risk of
sounding creepy, I’m going to tell you why I was so…overeager when
you first came to school.”

“
Creepy? You weren’t
stalking me, were you?”

“
Ha! No, I wasn’t.
But I had seen you several times.”

“
When?”

“
The first time was
about a month ago—guess it was the day you arrived. I was on the
football field doing laps for practice and I passed your house—saw
this sweet little thing in a yellow dress, just standing there
looking up at the blue sky. And I stopped running.”

I pictured it for a
second; David on the field, me by the car, watching Dad get the
suitcases from the trunk, and Vicki standing on the porch steps,
covering her mouth, trying not to cry, and so badly, I knew,
wanting to run out and hug me. But she didn’t. And I was glad for
that, because I’d have pushed her away.

“
My first thought was
how unusual it was to see a girl in a dress like that. And I just
thought you looked so pretty, so innocent and…when I looked a bit
closer, I realised that you looked sad. And something in me felt
tight.” He touched his chest, rubbing it. “I hadn’t really felt
that before.” He laughed a little; I smiled. “I just wanted to make
you okay. And I hoped I’d get a chance to meet you. I knew that was
Mr Thompson’s house, so I figured you were his
daughter.”

“
So you asked him
about me?”

He smiled, his lips
spreading wide over his teeth. “Uh, no. I didn’t have the guts. I
uh—I actually set it up. I guess I set
him
up to
have
to tell me about
you.”

“
How?”

“
He was running
football practice one afternoon, and you were out in the backyard.
I asked your dad if that girl on the swing at his house was related
to him. And he told me you were his daughter. And I told him you
were beautiful.”

“
Suck up.”

He laughed. “I waited
so long for you to come to school, Ara. When you finally did, and I
finally saw you up close, I’m sorry—” he touched his chest,
grinning, “—but, I actually couldn’t believe how beautiful you were
and I—” He stopped, closing his eyes.

“
You?”

“
I instantly fell in
love with you.”

My heart stopped
beating, slipping through each of my internal organs until it hit
my feet.

David laughed lightly,
tucking my hair behind my ear. “You’re going to be okay, you know.
We’ll get through this. Together.”

“
Together?”

“
Yeah.”

I snuggled into his
chest, wrapping my arms all the way around him. “I like the way
that sounds.”

“
Me too,” he said,
and in his arms I stood, with my eyes closed and the tranquillity
of love keeping my heart beating, while each breath I took unlinked
my soul from the binds of my shadowed past. I never wanted to go
back to before. I wanted this embrace to last forever—to stay here
in his arms where all of my troubles didn’t seem so absolute and
the world didn’t seem so cruel. There was something about the way
he held me that made me feel safe—made me realise, as wholly as I
knew myself, that the empty feeling I’d suffered so long could only
have been cured by this moment—by David, who came into my life as
just a boy, and turned out to be a knight.

Chapter
Nine

David closed the front
door and we both looked up the dark staircase to the sound of a
piano.

“
That’s weird,” I
said. “We don’t even have a piano.”

He smiled. “I’ll wait
here.”

“
By
yourself?”

His smile softened.
“Something tells me you might need a minute.”

“
Why?” I
frowned.

“
Ara?” Dad called
down from his room. “Is that you?”

“
Uh, yeah. I just
came back to get changed.”

“
Come in here first,
please.”

I looked at David, who
took a step back, offering the stairway. “I’ll just be a
sec.”

“
I’ll be right
here.”

Each step I took felt
like my last; I was sure Dad had a massive lecture waiting behind
his bedroom door on why we don’t sneak out of school with strange
boys, but as I pushed his door open and saw him sitting on the end
of his bed, my heart felt heavy. “Dad?”

He turned his face
from the cradle of his hands. “Come in. Close the door.”

“
Where’s Vicki and
Sam?”

“
Family pizza
night.”

“
Oh yeah. Sorry.” I
stopped. “I forgot about pizza night.”

“
It’s fine, honey.”
He patted the bed; I sat down next to him.

“
Why didn’t you go,
Dad?”

He gave me a look that
suggested the obvious. “My daughter ran away from school
today—crying. I wanted to be here when you got home.”

“
I’m sorry about
that, Dad.” I twiddled my thumbs.

“
Ara-Rose, you don’t
need to be sorry.” He rubbed my back. “I’m just glad someone was
there for you.”

“
Yeah.” Dad’s soft
smile infected my heart, making me grin, too. “David kind of forced
a deep and meaningful confession out of me.”

Dad laughed. “So, you
told him—about why you came to live here?”

No, you
did
. “Yeah. We’re—he’s helping me through
it.”

Dad sighed massively
and wrapped his arm all the way around my shoulder, pulling me into
him for a bear-tight hug. “I’m so relived to hear that. And you’re
all going out to Betty’s tonight, right?”

I nodded. “If
that’s…is it still okay?”

“
Of course it is,
honey.” He pressed a big sloppy Dad kiss on my brow. “More than
okay. I’ll even give you a later curfew. How’s that
sound?”

“
Really? What
time?”

“
Eleven sound
fair?”

“
Yes!” I hugged him,
wrapping my skinny arms all the way around his neck. “Thank you,
Dad.”

“
Just happy to make
you happy.” He rubbed my back, and as I pulled away, sitting beside
him again, my butt landed on the remote, starting up the film he’d
been watching. I went to apologise, but my eyes strayed from his
smile to the TV set, stopping on the tiny dancer, gracefully
billowing across the screen.

“
I’m sorry, honey.”
Dad grabbed the remote and went to turn it off; I placed my hand
over his.

“
Wait. I want to
see.”

He lowered the remote
and I rose to my feet, walking slowly over to watch the only piece
of my mother I had left.

“
Did she ever tell
you about this concert?” Dad asked.

I shook my
head.

“
It was the year
before she quit ballet.”

“
Before she had
me?”

“
Yes.” He stood
beside me. “It was Swan Lake.”

“
I know.” I smiled,
watching my mother dance. “I did this one last year for our ballet
recital.”

His arm wrapped my
shoulders. “I remember. You were such a beautiful
dancer.”

“
I think I inherited
that from Mom.”

“
Yes.” He looked at
the screen. “Among other things.”

I looked up at his
watering eyes. “You miss her, too?”

He pressed stop on the
remote and the screen went black. “I always will.”

A moment of silence
passed between us. “I’m sorry, Dad.”

“
What
for?”

“
I…I’m just
sorry—about everything.”

He looked down at me,
his eyes narrowing tightly on the inner corners. “You know, honey,
if there’s something you need to tell me—”